Long Time No See

I found it also really strange in the beginning, but I heard a lot of native speakers saying that, so it is possible to say "Long time no see"

yes, I agree with you, I heard that lots of people saying like that.

maybe it comes from Chinese sayings : Hao Jiu Bu Jian (Pinyin In Chinese), which means "Have not seen each other for a long time".

In context - you bump into someone you haven't seen for a long time, either accidently, or a side-effect of doing something else. With an expression of joy and/or surprise on your face, say "Hi . How you doing? Long time no see!"

"Long time no hear" is also usable on the telephone. I would guess that really modern variants like "long time no email" and so on will also start to become mo

Hello Hurricane,

Allow me to add a couple of applicable expressions in this sense.

"Long time no see." is OK, but the usage is mostly confined to the colloquia expression.

"It's been a long time." could be used in the same situation.
It is a shortened form of "it has been a long time since I saw you last."

Maybe Rommie, as he is British, would say, "I

I am a she. I am not British.

Rommie

Rommie, I am terribly sorry. I sincerely hope that you are not hurt by my reckless remark.

I don't understand where I picked up that unfounded idea that you were a British man.
All I want to say now is I am so sorry.

This old man will have to learn again how to behave more prudently.

Mirapence

I was intrigued by this thread, as I'm a native English speaker, looking for the origins of this strange expression.

Grammatically, it's not very good English, and is always used in a lighthearted fashion. As someone has already suggested, it may be a parody (sorry

Long time, No see; Long time, No talk, and Look-See, as when you ask someone for assistance and they offer to have a Look-See all come from Chinese origin. The Long time forms are answered above, and to have a Look-See is a literal translation from Mandarin Chinese of khan-khan

I'm writing an e-mail to a friend and would like to use 'long time no see', now I'm quite confused because I could say ' long time no see...' when talking to someone, but in my dictionary doesn't say anything about writing to someone... Are there any other words I could use instead of 'long time no see' as I'm not sure weather I can use this expression in writing?

Angela

Well in email you can get away with using informal expressions that normally wouldn't fly in other writing, so you could say "hey, long time no see" if you wanted to. If you want to set a lighthearted tone it would definitely be appropriate. If, however you want a more serious tone, you'd probably want to go for something like "hi, I haven't written to you in a while" or something to that effect.